Mali

The tam-tam is Mali's heartbeat.The kora sings of the river Niger, her lyrical souland the electric guitar cries outof the harsh beauty of desert life.

Mali is two countries in landscape, culture, and history linked by the great River Niger. North, the electric guitar of the desert - the Tinariwen sound - and south the kora and acoustic guitar of the river region - the Ali Farka Touré sound.

The heterogenous south, where the Bambara share the land along the River Niger with Fulani nomadic pastoralists, the animist Dogon, Bozo fishermen and agriculturalist Songhai. And the homogenous north where the Sahara desert has been home to the nomadic Tuareg for thousands of years.

These two worlds have, for hundreds - even thousands - of years, met and traded at Timbuktu, where the Sahara meets the River Niger and sub-Saharan Africa. My Mali trips describe these two different worlds.

The festival tours concentrate on the south - Bamako, Djenne, the Dogon Country, the Niger River and Timbuktu. My desert trips take you to the north, deep into the Sahara desert to the most important remaining cultural heartland of the Tuareg, the Valley of Tillemsi and the Adrar Des Iforas mountains in the region of Kidal

See more information below.

Upcoming Trips

From 21 June 2017: Mali by bus and trekking:

A two week journey taking in Djenne, 5 days trekking in the Dogon country, Djenne and Segou to bamako by River Niger